Expensive cars, flashy jewelry, three houses..Pai Gow John had it made. His scam was simple because it relied not on high-tech equipment or gadgets, but by a false shuffle of the cards.
Before it was broke up, Pai Gow John’s ring had taken away 8 million dollars in four years. What they did was to bribe dealers in other states and fly them to SD to learn the false shuffle. They sent scouts to Mississippi to asses the casino’s vulnerabilities to the shuffle.
When everything was set, they would move in and occupy several seats at a table run by a bribed dealer. They knew what cards were going to be dealt. At one casino in Indiana, at a mini-baccarot table they won more than $890.000 in 90 mintues.
Here is how the scam worked- one ring member secretly wrote down the order of the cards as they were dealt from the shoe. When the shoe is empty, the dealer would false shuffle the cards before putting them back in the shoe. During the shuffle through slieght of hand, the dealer kept a group of cards intact, called a slug, i.e 40 cards. So, the dealer would start dealing again and when the first card of the slug was dealt..the recorder knew which cards were coming out and then signaled the other ring members at the table and the would win the bets until the slug ran out.
This is the reason why a lot of casinos use shuffle machines to mix the cards instead of dealers shuffling the cards.
I am going to show you three different false shuffles..the first is a over-hand shuffle that you would see in a private game, and as you see the red stays with the reds and the blacks stay with the blacks.
In a casino, you have to riffle the pack face down, and as you can see the reds stay with the reds and the blacks stays with the blacks.
In some of the cardrooms here in California, they would break the deck into four halfs and shuffle the packets together..in this case mixing the red cards with black cards & the same with these two packs, red and black cards…no way you could cheat then, right? But as you can see, the red cards stays with the reds & the blacks stays with the black
Before it was broke up, Pai Gow John’s ring had taken away 8 million dollars in four years. What they did was to bribe dealers in other states and fly them to SD to learn the false shuffle. They sent scouts to Mississippi to asses the casino’s vulnerabilities to the shuffle.
When everything was set, they would move in and occupy several seats at a table run by a bribed dealer. They knew what cards were going to be dealt. At one casino in Indiana, at a mini-baccarot table they won more than $890.000 in 90 mintues.
Here is how the scam worked- one ring member secretly wrote down the order of the cards as they were dealt from the shoe. When the shoe is empty, the dealer would false shuffle the cards before putting them back in the shoe. During the shuffle through slieght of hand, the dealer kept a group of cards intact, called a slug, i.e 40 cards. So, the dealer would start dealing again and when the first card of the slug was dealt..the recorder knew which cards were coming out and then signaled the other ring members at the table and the would win the bets until the slug ran out.
This is the reason why a lot of casinos use shuffle machines to mix the cards instead of dealers shuffling the cards.
I am going to show you three different false shuffles..the first is a over-hand shuffle that you would see in a private game, and as you see the red stays with the reds and the blacks stay with the blacks.
In a casino, you have to riffle the pack face down, and as you can see the reds stay with the reds and the blacks stays with the blacks.
In some of the cardrooms here in California, they would break the deck into four halfs and shuffle the packets together..in this case mixing the red cards with black cards & the same with these two packs, red and black cards…no way you could cheat then, right? But as you can see, the red cards stays with the reds & the blacks stays with the black